Jack never agreed to the arrangement, but that hardly mattered in the long run. They would've gotten him back to Santoff Claussen with or without his consent and like the traitor he discovered the wind was, it let them. He had tried to run, but without the wind's help his ostentatious leap for the skies didn't take him any further than where he had left off. The wind let him down gently, the winter spirit had drifted downward in a descent similar to that of the snowflakes he controlled. They cornered him, and outnumbered one to five thanks to the wind's betrayal, there was no way he could take them all.

But that didn't stop him for trying. Jackson Overland Frost never backed down from a challenge. He didn't fight back forcedly, though, quite the contrary actually, he resisted without laying a single hand on any of them. North would grab at him and he would sidestep the corpulent man with a laugh. Of course he was irritated by the direct confrontation, especially since he had just left Santoff Claussen the other day, but one of the first things he learned while haunting the earth was to laugh at life. Finding fun in the face of adversity helped him through the lone nights, and it helped in this case too. (There was a time when the serious eclipsed the fun, but he tried to push that thought down under the surface.)

Tooth flitted toward him, but he jumped into one of the trees, despite the wind's attempt to keep him down. Bunny came gunning for him next, and this time Jack was especially careful to dodge the pooka's attacks. While the others wanted to take him safely (even if by force) back to Santoff Claussen, Bunny wouldn't even think twice about knocking the kid out.

He laughed as he tried desperately to scramble up the tree. Mid-snicker, he was grabbed by his foot and thrown into the air, the wind's hand a strong vice grip on his pale ankle as it slammed him into a snow bank. The last thing his conscious mind could detect was the glittering gold of Sandman's dream sand being blown into his eyes.

"I don't know, the kid has held his own with Pitch before."

"Does that mean we do not help him? Jack is family now, no? And you know how he is…"

Bunny snorted, "All too well…"

"You think this is the best solution?"

"I can think of nothing else."

"Pitch has had time to plan against Jack. He didn't have that before. As much as it pains me to say, North might be right just this once, we can't let him have that kind of an advantage."

She sighed, "I suppose so, but he's not going to take it very —"

"Mates, shut up, he's wakin' up."

Sandy gave a triumphant huff, puffing out his chest and crossing his arms. They all looked at him with annoyance and he just gave an inaudible laugh. There are always consequences for ignoring the guardian of dreams. Jack internally laughed at that, because he naturally found almost everything amusing, but he had to keep up the annoyed veneer, and maybe make them feel the least bit bad about ambushing him with no explanation.

"Okay, okay," he murmured, wiping the sand from his eyes and trying to fight against the drowsiness. His greatest weapon was the weight of the situation, "Now, what did I do this time?"

His gaze fell on the yetis, and realization struck him.

"Is this about Phil?"

North narrowed his eyes.

"What about Phil?"

"Uh…Nothing, nothing… Weren't you going to tell me what terrible thing I've done to get you all together again? I'll save us all the trouble and not take any more guesses. "

"After you left Santoff Claussen, we found a…um, что слово?"

"Message." Bunny supplied.

"Yes, we found a message," his eyes narrowed again as he said gently, "From Pitch."

"Does he need another fight to put him in his place?" he jumped onto the balls of his feet, "Why didn't you say so? I know where his layer-hideout-thing is."

"No, Jack."

"Oh," he looked at Father Christmas, confused, "Well what exactly did this message say?"

"It…" his bright eyes flitted to Tooth for a moment, "That's…classified."

His shoulders slumped.

"…Classified." Jack repeated, disbelieving.

"Are you serious? I know I'm not the most experienced guardian, but you can't just —"

"Jack," Tooth pleaded, "You just have to trust us on this one."

He raked his spidery, thin fingers through his ghost-white hair,

"Well, if you don't want me to fight him, and you can't even tell me what he said, why did you go through so much trouble to get me?"

"We wouldn't have had to if you had come when we sent out the alarm."

"I thought those were just for real members."

They all just looked at him.

"That… was stupid."

"You got that right." Bunny grinned sardonically.

Tooth elbowed him.

"Hey!"

"Deserved." Jack snickered momentarily, before remembering that he had to be mad at them for keeping him in the dark, no — he was legitimately angered by his own ignorance on the matter; sometimes he just got caught up in the fun.

"So, hey what do you guys want me for again?"

They all shared a side glance.

"We need you… to stay here, with North." Toothiana finally confessed. Sandy made a miniature jail cell above his head and the guardian of memories elbowed him as well.

"You're kidding me. You've got to be…" he trailed off. The looks in all of their eyes, the expressions varying from austerity to sympathy, stopped his words in their tracks.

"It is what's best for everyone, trust us."

"Trust you? When you guys won't trust me? I have a right to know."

North gave a heavy sigh.

"Pitch is…planning something."

"And I'm guessing you have some idea as to what that is, but you're not going to tell me."

"We're not the enemy here, Jack." Tooth tried.

"I know, I know, but what is having me cooped up in here going to help?"

"We need you here."

His eyes flashed with white, hot anger.

"Why? So you can keep an eye on me? You're scared I'm going to mess something up." It wasn't even a question anymore, it was an accusation he already knew was spot-on.

"No, Jack, of course not, we know you're more than capable of handling Pitch…"

Her tone wasn't very reassuring.

"Yeah, yeah, okay. I get it." He gave in. He knew they were lying to him, and it did hurt a bit, but he knew a fruitless situation when he saw one. Things would be a lot easier if he just went along with their plan.

"I'll stay."

For now.

After all, there was a game to be played here.

This story was originally part of my drabble collection, but I split that in to three separate stories, because it wasn't even supposed to be a drabble series in the first place and it was really hard keeping track of everything. I hope this is easier because I'm really tired of moving all this stuff.